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Monday, 14 May 2018

Does Steven Gerrard have room at Ibrox for massive summer signing?

One transfer last summer was extensively protracted. Indeed, the saga around it and the consequent hype suggested Rangers, once it was finally secured, were getting a true marquee player and one who could make the difference in a truly meaningful way.

However, as we have alluded to a few times, the fact his then-present club’s fans were not sad to see him go should have set alarm bells ringing. They described him as a luxury player who was at best inconsistent and at worst anonymous.

Norwich City fans really weren’t bothered about Graham Dorrans leaving, and Rangers fans were convinced this guy was coming home to his boyhood team and would be something special.

It simply hasn’t worked out and to call him a flop signing wouldn’t be unfair.

We defended him a lot on here – pointing out he was being played much deeper than he would ideally like, and that defensive midfield wasn’t his forte.

This is absolutely true, and yet, the player’s position isn’t exactly overly clear – many of us have him pegged for the attacking midfield slot, but he lacks the pace and trickery for that. Others have him at central midfield, but he’s not got the physical strength or apparent composure to pull those strings.

And a winger he surely isn’t.

So where is he best suited?

His performance at Easter Road rather summed up the problem – even in his ‘best’ position of advanced midfield he had no impact – he did manage one reasonable assist early on against Aberdeen in that range too, only for Morelos to fluff his lines, but in general other than a couple of decent displays it’s been a season to forget for Dorrans.

We don’t know if he has anything like justified his place in the team – his contributions since returning from injury have been negligible, and his displays up until it weren’t much better.

The one stand out was of course his excellent display at Perth under Pedro, but as we said before, even the disaster that was Carlos Pena had a good night there.

We just don’t know where Graham Dorrans goes from here. All the hype about his arrival has not been delivered by performances – while many could argue he’s suffered poor management, unlike a tonne of the rest of the squad (Morelos, Goss, Docherty, Murphy, Windass) he hasn’t even had an isolated purple patch where he looked impressive.

So your guess is as good as ours.

Quite honestly, based on last season, there really isn’t room for Graham Dorrans other than a squad option. All too often he was picked regardless of form by managers who seemed to have him in by default. But perhaps if made to feel less important he might fight back and try to earn his place back on merit.

He doesn’t deserve it as things stand, and things are changing dramatically down Edmiston way.